The present invention relates to methods of determining the operating characteristics of antennas and more particularly to determining near-fields more accurately than prior known techniques. Measurement techniques have been developed to obtain near-field data for use in computing far-field patterns. The procedure in the past was to measure the phase and intensity over a planar surface. For conformal arrays and antennas in radomes, these planar techniques are not sufficiently accurate because of the nonuniform reception by the probe. For conformal arrays, it is desirable to understand diffractions by the edges of a structure containing an array. For antennas and radomes, the field near the antenna is needed to facilitate pattern calculations; that is, practical calculations with ray tracing as surface integration require the near-field inside the radome without a field extending outside.